


X

by HAL_berd



Category: Rockman X | Mega Man X
Genre: Gen, Minor canon divergence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-03-26 14:16:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13859472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HAL_berd/pseuds/HAL_berd
Summary: Zero wakes up and struggles to find his purpose. X is there along the way.(Now with the actual Chapter 6. Sorry for the juke, guys.)





	1. Z- Zrt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (My son.)

_Warningwarningwarningerror__

__catastrophicfailureinternaldamageleakage__

__compromisedprocessorsfivepercent__

__sensoryinputfeedbackloop-__

“Good God, shut him down, he’s in-”

__painpainpainpainPainPainPAINPAINPAINPAIN__

“-on a budget! This is a crisis, not a research project, Doctor! He’s-”

__HURTSHURTSHURTSERRORERROR__

“-his core, Sigma! X, status!”

“His systems and power core are in critical condition, Doctor. Processors are overloading, synthetic nerve system has begun to feed data into itself, external, internal damage, the works. No wonder he’s-”

__V O C A L _ S Y S H A S O V E R L O A D E D A N D C R A S H E D__

“-Doctor, Commander, I’m afraid we’ll have to evacuate all humans from the lab. He’s leaking radiation; his core’s unstable.”

“-was afraid I’d go deaf at that rate. X, Sigma, you need to evacuate with me!”

“Doctor, I will escort you out-”

“I’m staying, Doctor.”

“X? But the core! You could be- No, I won’t allow you to-”

_ _W H E R E I S T H I S__

 _“_ -fine! I’ll be fine, I swear! I can fix this. This is our first specimen in _years_ . At least let me _try_ -”

_ _W H Y A M I H E R E__

“-X, you can’t! He could _kill_ you! The blast- if it blows, it could _kill_ you, it’s-”

“Dr. Cain, just _go!_ ”

“Doctor. Leave him be. Let him show some goddamn initiative for once; you can’t protect him forever.”

“X, I-”

“I’m sorry, Doctor. Commander Sigma’s right. Go. Please go.”

___

_W_

_H_

_Y_

_A_

_M_

_I_

_H_

_E_

_R_

_E_

___

The glass lifts. Green eyes. Hands. Cold instruments. Gripping carefully around his center.

(Like a scientist’s grip.)

(Like a father’s grip.)

(Like a f a t h e r ‘ s g r i p.)

(L I K   E     A      C     H      O        K         E           H           O            L                D           .)

“You’re going to be-”

_(-my greatest creation! The robot to end all robots, my greatest son, the one who will-)_

“-fine. Just fine. I swear to you, I promise you. I will do whatever it takes to-”

_(-destroy him once and for all, that cretin. You’ll be the one to-)_

“-save you, I swear. I swear. You’ll be the one. I can finally-”

_(-show him the extent of his oppression. His cruelty. His conceit-)_

“-save at least one. Please. Please work.”

With careful cuts and movements, a rift opens in him. The core comes away into gloved hands. Pulsing. Crackling. Undulating in its instability. To be molded like a ball of c l a y.

Like a ball of clay.

Like a ball of-

_W  H   O     A      M       I         ?_

_(-my son, my son, my son, my son my son mysonmysonmy-)_

_P O W E R D I S C O N N E C T E D_

_S H U T T I N G D O W N_

* * *

 

…

…

…

_M A I N P R O C E S S O R S G R E E N_

_I N I T I A T I N G S T A R T U P S E Q U E N C E_

_crrrrk_

_crrrrrrrrrrrrrk_

It’s...warm.

_crrrr-_

_“_ -and that sho-o-o-o-ould do it. Yes, perfect. Auditory and optical are online now.”

“ _Nicely done, X.”_

“I do hope so. I’m ge-e-e-e-etting a little sloppy. The 5-20-10 was a close thing.”

“ _That was your own damn fault. Reploids can hardly even function at two percent, much less conduct a circuit operation on the SN Plexius. That was-”_

“-s-s-s-stupid. I know-”

“ _I was going to say reckless, but-”_

He just lays there while they have their back and forth. Their words- they don’t register. It’s illogical, the way he can understand everything they say and nothing at all. He is young, oh so young for his body, too young to unconsciously force entry into the lab network and search the terminology for a 5-20-10 separation operation on the tight concentration of Synthetic Nerves in his primary cavity.

He blinks at the ceiling as his opticals continue to focus and unfocus. Blue ceiling. Armored paneling. His processors print “satisfaction” and “contentment” with the speed of the lab’s network, and then he wonders what that even means. He absorbs from the database that inexplicably pops into his mind. 5-20-10: laser scalpel, soldering iron (medical), copper wire/appropriate conductor alloy, medical experience recommended, surgical precision, surgical precision...

His body prints a splash of fear, a dab of anger at the information but...why? What...? Why does it elicit such a thrill of...what is this? _Outrage_ , his processors supply. It’s foreign.

The scientist and the holo-communicator continue to jibber in their own separate-same language.

“ _-levels in the lab?”_

“Not sa-a-a-a-a-afe yet, I’m afraid. Decontamination has been meticulous about the dust around the lab and equipment, and I swe-e-e-ear they almost knocked out some components when they hosed me. Speaking of which, I do hope you got rid of that coat.”

 _“Never. I kept it after finding_ you _. A second helping of radioactivity won’t be the end of it, X-”_

The scientist delicately pokes a long instrument into his core chamber.

His core.

His _core_ \- something happened to his… It’s hazy, but he remembers _seeing_ his own pulsating core, and his thoughts go blank. His processors print “anger,” so he decides to try on “anger,” but he can’t put his anger to language and can’t put his language to speech. He abandons the endeavor. It’s not him feeling anger anyways, it’s-

It’s what? He thinks. There’s something missing here. It’s hiding in the back of his thoughts, but he can’t bring himself to care enough to search because he doesn’t feel anger and doesn’t feel strange and doesn’t feel-

It’s his processors, anyways. His processors are the ones printing anger, not...whatever was before.

The Database his processors had acquired pops to a different page. _ChR-15 cables and monitors (colloquially “Power Readers”) translate data from a reploid’s energy reserves to display the allocation of energy to its separate systems… long copper alloy rods that correspond to port PX-20 in the core cavity…_

Data scrolls onto a screen to his side. The scientist swivels to the panel.

“...The energy priority settings on his systems are...stra-a-a-a-a-ange, Doctor. Necessary functions, emotional and informational processors- not in that order, primary envi-i-i-i-i-ironmental sensors, motor and movement, battle protocols, Higher Cognitive Systems- _wow_ , that is _low_ on the priority list for an _android_ , auditory/visual... it goes o-o-o-o-o-on, and then processor-cognitive trans/comms followed lastly by inner diagnostics and outer communications…”

“ _That is...troubling. This one’s not of modern make.”_

“Oh, Docto-o-o-o-or, it’s... He essentially can’t be considered an android until 0.6%. It’s...”

“ _Cruel?”_

“I was going to say stra-a-a-ange, but that _is_ more apt.”

_“Well, without Proc-Cog, the poor fellow must be confused out of his mind. Take him from the controlled charger to standard. And please do plug yourself in before you stutter to death.”_

The scientist puts his delicate instruments down with trembling hands.

“O-o-o-o-o-o-o-of course.”

“ _Gesundheit.”_

“Doctor, yo-o-o-o-ou will be the end of me-e-e-e-e-e.”

 _“Ahaha! But you see, X, it is_ I _who shall die first! It is_ you _who will be the end of- Oh, I’m sorry? She…what?! Oh, curse this fool head of mine! X, I must be going, I’m quite sorry-”_

“Is it Caroli-i-i-i-ine?”

“ _Yes. Her wedding. I completely forgot!”_

“Run, Doctor. Good luck.”

“ _Thank you; I’ll be needing it. Goodbye, X.”_

A click, and the communicator goes dead.

He watches with rapt attention as the scientist gathers a bundle of cords from off the floor, eyes the occupied outlets all around the workstation, and settles with one on the opposite wall. The cords are threaded between tables and around equipment. He realizes the lab is fastidiously clean- the instruments look newly wiped and placed, and there is hardly any dust in the air. “Decontamination” must have already come.

He sees the scientist bring the cord around to the workstation, plugging it into a three-outlet adapter. Pulls out two more shorter cords, about two or three feet each. Plugs those in. He watches. All of this because… because the outlets nearby are occupied by machines that pump liquids and materials and granulated minerals into his body.

“Life support” is the term in the lab database.

With proper care, the scientist snaps one of the cords into a port somewhere in his core cavity. He feels a surge of energy. He feels his thoughts melt into his emotions, feels the strange dichotomy in his body slowly weather away, feels his mind harmonize with his processors, feels _right_ , feels…

He feels.

Fear. And anger. And sadness and confusion and guilt and… Pride. And confidence. And understanding. He connects emotions, reactions, and meaning to words and images and thoughts.

All of this as he watches the scientist pull open clothing and discreetly split a seam in perfectly toned synth-skin. The other cord connects to a port there. The scientist’s eyes widen. A sigh of ecstasy and relief.

He traces both their cords with his eyes, to their shared adapter, down the extension, to the one outlet on the opposite wall.

Melancholy.

Something...something tight. That makes his processors whir and click. He searches for the emotion, gives the search some time.

With wonder, he tries to put his feelings to words, but his throat only croaks.

The scientist gives him a wan smile.

“It looks like your vocal systems are just booting up, huh?”

How is he supposed to answer that? His mind and processor scramble to find something, some mannerism to respond with. There. He approximates a nod. It makes the scientist laugh. Annoyance. Satisfaction. That strange emotion. Searching, searching...

“Oh, it’s thoroughly fascinating,” the scientist states breathily, “how despite your vastly different background, you still have that same look on your face that all reploids get when booted up for the first time. But I suppose you aren’t a reploid. No, no… You’re like me.”

Again, that feeling, concentrated, intense. He opens his mouth. Nothing comes out.

“It should only be a couple more seconds before you can speak, I’m sure,” says the scientist. “And, and... _Oh_ , I’m just so excited! I’ve been working nonstop for nearly two weeks, and it was horrid, just horrid, how many times we almost lost you.”

A shaky breath, but no indication of stopping.

“And then the Council slashed our funding because your systems clearly weren’t maverick when I tested them just a couple days ago, and I was certain they would scrap you, _you_ , even though you… well, you’re like me, and I…I…”

He watches that wan smile turn down just a little bit more. He doesn’t know how to respond. The scientist looks up at him, and…Is that…? He focuses his optics. Yes, the scientist’s eyes are leaking.

“I’m rambling aren’t I?” A quick swipe of a grimy lab coat sleeve to wipe away the leakage. “My bad. I’m still a little low. Not as low as you, of course, but my mind is still quite addled; forgive me.”

What is this? That mystery feeling (searching, searching…) mixes with…concern. He opens his mouth again, searches for some mannerism to emulate-

“...It’s...I-i-i-i-it’s f-f-i-i-i-i-ine…”

The scientist’s eyes brighten with surprise and glee.

“Oh, your vo-o-o-o-o-,” the scientist stops, loud clicks and whirs emanating from the throat, (concern, concern, concern) before righting, “-oh, excuse me- your vocals! My vocals! We both need to give our vocal systems some time, don’t we?”

The scientist chuckles, and he can’t help it; he chuckles too. That tight feeling intensifies (searching, searching, searching…).

“But where _are_ my manners?” The scientist places a still slightly quivering hand upon an exposed synth-skin chest. “My name is X! I’m the man… I’m the… _android_ , who fixed you up. Do you have a name? Oh, that’s dumb, of _course_ you have a name-”

Actually, he...can’t find one.

“...no-o-o… no...thing…”

The scientist- _X_ , pauses in his mutterings. “Pardon?”

He struggles to get the words out straight.

“...no…name…”

X blinks. “But, you _must_ have some sort of name! Don’t you remember?”

No, he doesn’t.

He doesn’t… _remember_ anything.

But he hardly has time to acknowledge that before his inner diagnostics come online. Spontaneously, he becomes violently, horribly aware of his missing- his missing-

Something builds in him. His vocal systems kick in full swing.

“ _Where is my core?_ ”

He _hisses_ , reaches out a hand only to find it restrained at his sides, and it just continues to build-

Anger. Fear, anger fear angerfearanger-

His power cord rips out from the speed of the scientist backing away.

He fizzles.

X creeps back to the workbench, carrying the half-disconnected adapter in one hand.

“My core…” he croaks, and it sounds pitiful to even _his_ auditory systems. “My core...Where…Where is it?”

“...Your core is still under repairs,” states X, calmly, despite the renewed tremor in his hand. “If I’d kept it around, it would’ve been a hazard to your entire body.  You’ll have it back soon, I promise.”

He calms. X’s expression, rife with concealed fear, elicits guilt from his emotional processors for some strange reason.

Carefully, X offers their shared adapter forward. He nods, with a little more authenticity this time.

“This,” a quaver, and X holds up the charger head to cover it, “goes straight to your power reserves. I’m sorry to say, your core was unstable, so I had to remove it. I spent quite some time studying it after removing the element. The core’s build was remarkably similar to, well, _mine_.”

He nods again, unable to muster the energy to rally a proper emotional response. X plugs the cord into his (empty) core cavity.

“What that means is…” X takes his time searching for potential damage around the energy port. “It’ll be an easy fix. I plan to use parts from my spare core reactors to replace irreparably damaged components in yours; in fact, you could probably _use_ one of my spares, but I figured you would prefer to preserve at least _something_. New cores- they feel wrong.”

He nods again. The energy flowing back into his body feels surreal.

“I do hope that’s alright.”

Nod.

(He’s so, so tired.)

“I'll...I’ll let you shut off then. Good night... you.”

Those three words spark a new wave of that strange, tight emotion from before, and now he’s found the word for it.

_Kinship._

_S H U T T I N G D O W N_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave a thing? I'm trying to get this out before my interest dies of content starvation.


	2. X, Is X

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> X is quite the character.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTICE: I completely redid this chapter as of 3/16. I originally wrote the thing pretty late at night, and I was so caught up in expressing my concepts immediately that I started indulging in myself and abusing the two leads as low-key exposition dumps instead of actually characterizing their relationship like I originally planned in my outline. X would've been more careful and considerate with Zero's budding coherency than just barfing information at him. I'm slowing it down now. It's shorter, a bit more awkward, and a bit more pretentious, but I hate it less. Very sorry about this. I'll make it up by working very hard on finishing and revising chapter three to be published before Monday.

"Good morning."

He awakens, and it's X, filing away a large sheaf of documents in a desk a few feet away.

He stares. He  _remembers_.

(He should probably say something back.)

"Good...morning," he says. His vocal systems are incredibly clear. "Good morning."

X smiles, wearily, and it warms him to his missing core.

His background processors are still preoccupied with taking inventory of his entire body. There are things that are glaringly obvious, like his disconnected synthetic nerve system, creating the strange sensation of knowing the exact temperature of the room he's in, but being unable to feel it. The gaping hole in his chest. The gaping hole in his memory. The missing...something.

He sets up a search for it, and lets it run.

X rolls a chair over.

"How're you feeling?" the android asks.

He takes in the mussed brown hair, the smeared glasses, the simulated bags under shadowed green ocular displays ( _wasteful, so wasteful_ , the logical side of him prints). How long has it been since he shut down? Three days. He summons from that scant and slightly corrupted memory an approximate image and tries to discern exactly what he's seeing.

X looks...

Less "frantic," more "tired."

Less "desperate," more "resigned."

Less "emotional," more "calm."

(Searching, searching, searching...)

"I'm feeling..." What? He's "feeling" several emotions pretty strongly right now, but he can't "feel" anything physically at all. He finds a courtesy answer on the internet. "...fine." What else? "Rested. My processors are rested."

X runs a hand through his hair, some kind of unnecessary habit (a "tic," he's informed) that he can't really understand. It's  _wasteful_.

"That's good," X says in a thin, haggard sort of voice. "The extra coolant is working. Very good."

(Searching, searching, searching...)

He looks up at X.

"How are  _you_ feeling?"

X's drooping eyes pique at that, and the android gives some strange animal sound-

 _Snort- can sometimes be used to express disbelief or amusement_ -

-before leaning back into his chair.

"Oh, I'm fine," X says. "Perhaps a bit exhausted and irritated, but fine for the most part." "Fine" doesn't really seem to mean anything, he notes. "But...thank you for asking. I really do appreciate that."

He copies X's tired smile. It makes X smile wider, which makes  _his_  smile feel less...copied.

The silence, he realizes, makes his processors whir in frustration. 

 _Keep talking, keep talking to him_ -

"We are in...a laboratory," he states quietly. He wants to keep talking to him.

"Indeed. We're in Cain Laboratories for Autonomous Solutions," X clarifies.

(Searching, searching, searching-)

What else to say?

"My environmental scanners say it's...warm."

X chuckles, one eyebrow raised.

"Well, I do personally prefer it warm," comes the answer, patient and, as his behavioral processors inform him, entirely too involved considering his inane comment. "Of course, I'm so terribly sorry you can't feel how pleasant it is in here."

He suddenly wants his nervous system to come online so that he can discuss how pleasantly warm Cain Laboratories for Autonomous Solutions is with X. The impulse is something he can't understand, like X's simulated bags, like X's eyes leaking, like...X.

(Searching, searching...

He can't find whatever's missing. It must be gone, or-

He slams into a firewall.

-hiding.)

"I'm..." He looks down. Yes, they're still there. "...restrained to the table?"

X makes a small, discreet motion (a "wince," apparently).

"...Yes, unfortunately so," X says, staring bleakly at the shackles around his arms. "If it were up to me, they would be off. But it's not up to me, so... I apologize."

He takes it in stride. It's not like it matters. It looks like his processors' control of his arms has been shut down anyways.

(He's pushing, pushing. There's no yield.)

"It's fine."

X gives a great sigh, another behavior he can't begin to understand. An android, breathing.

(The firewall is solid. He considers asking X-)

 _Keep talking_.

"I have a f-"

_Keep talking._

"-a fi-"

 _Keep talking_.

(He's shoved away from the firewall.)

"I'm sorry, what was that you were saying?" X asks blearily. "I'm afraid I haven't shut down in quite a while."

He thinks.

"I..."

(Too young, too young-)

"I forget."

He doesn't want to open the firewall anymore.

(Too young.)

 _Keep talking_.

Because X will be open and friendly. X will hang on his every word like he's a miracle. X will be happy every time he talks, no matter how unimportant it is.

X will leak and have bags and be so wastefully, wonderfully...

 

 

 

_human._

He doesn't know where the thoughts come from.

"Well, you did forget a lot recently," X says, (sadquiet) calmly. "But that's okay."

He tries to lean forward, but his motor control over his abdomen is also cut.

"Could you...turn my synthetic nerve system on?" he asks. He'll worry about his motor functions later. This is more important.

X tilts his head. "Why?"

"I want to talk with you about how pleasant it is in here."

Silence.

X looks like he's going to laugh, but there's leakage accumulating in the corner of the android's eye. Slowly, seemingly subconsciously, X makes to grab a thin tool from a compartment in the workbench-

Something in the corner issues a loud, piercing noise. X's hand jolts back.

"I'm afraid I can't."

"Why not?"

"Don't worry about it; there's..." X pauses. "...There are other things we can talk about. Just don't worry about it for now."

More things he can't understand.

"Okay."

He'll just keep talking to X.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drawings:  
> [Scribbles From X](https://imgur.com/a/6PQq2)  
> Sorry for being curt. I'm mad at myself.


	3. Cain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He's magnetizing, isn't he?"  
> And where does he get it from?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT PLEASE READ:  
> I redid chapter two as of 3/16. I cut things out, smoothed out the pacing, purged it of all the exposition dumping. Therefore, a lot of things this chapter hits will feel repetitive because it's stating some points that the original chapter two did state but the new one doesn't, but it'll be doing it without sacrificing characters. I heavily suggest just re-reading chapter two because I just overhauled it. I hated it. Please read the new one. It'll improve the flow of the story and shit.

_“Good morning, you."_

X isn't as engaging in holograph.

_"I’m sorry I can’t be there when you boot up; I’m afraid something came up and I had to go. The good news is Decontamination got the lab cleaned up while you were out, and Dr. Cain, my benefactor, friend, and, well… well, he’s practically my father, in a way, if you can sympathize with that sentiment.”_

He snorts at that.

_“Well, anyways, Dr. Cain is going to be coming in from now on. He’s a good man. I trust him, with my life.”_

X’s face is replaced with a picture of X standing with an old man, conversing. X is laughing in the picture.

_“Dr. Cain can fix up your body and activate your synthetic nerve system. I do hope the two of you get along.”_

Back to the recorded video of X.

_“I left the password to the lab’s internet in your databases, by the way. You can stop hacking it. If you wake up early, there’s some good reading material online to get you acquainted with the environment you’ll be facing outside, because I’m positive you’ll be let out sometime soon. I left some links for you. Keep yourself occupied until Dr. Cain comes in the morning- he’s a late sleeper, unfortunately, and he's probably snoring off the last dregs of leftover wedding champagne. The man can’t hold his liquor, I swear- Oh, I’m getting side-tracked aren’t I?”_

Pause.

He studies X’s brief expression of embarrassment. He tries to replicate it for the umpteenth time. Feels wrong. He gives up.

Play.

_“I’m sorry, I do that a lot. But anyways, keep yourself occupied and, uh… hold tight. If you ever want to contact me-  and don’t be a stranger; I’d love your company. I enjoyed talking to you. Thoroughly. Unless, of course, you don’t want to talk to me, in which case, I...I, uh… nevermind. The point is Dr. Cain can get you my information after you’re clear for leaving- if you want it, that is. I’ll be... I’ll be seeing you soon.”_

_Beeeeep._

End recorded message.

He fiddles with the small controller X had left in his hand.

_"'Message From X' Played: 84 times. If you would like to repeat, press-"_

Play.

_“Good morning, you-”_

He’d finished searching up all the strange expressions and phrases X used in his message at 06:35 AM.

_“-afraid something came up and I had to-”_

He’d finished searching online for mentions of an "X," who he was and where he could have possibly gone, at 07:12 AM.

Nothing conclusive.

_“-Dr. Cain-”_

He’d finished researching Dr. Cedric Owen Cain at 07:20 AM.

_“-wedding champagne-”_

Dr. Caroline Patricia Cain. Daughter. 07:25 AM.

_“-left some links for you-”_

The entire Abel City intro and info website. And all those papers. Everything. 07:34 AM.

_“-I’ll be seeing you soon.”_

_Beeeeep._

The message ends again.

It’s 09:47 AM.

_"'Message From X' Played: 85 times. If you would like to repeat, press Play."_

Play.

_"Good morning, you-"_

He thinks boredom is his third least favorite feeling following anger and fear.

He searches up Dr. Cain again, being careful to include the "Dr." and the "Cedric" lest he get bombarded with biblical references.

 _Dr. Cedric Owen Cain, seventy-four years old, decorated paleobotanist and autonomous roboticist_ , he re-reads _, commonly referred to as the father of modern robotics...got his PhD in paleobotony at Abel Institution of Technology (ATech) at the age of twenty-four... Family: Dr. Alma Jane Cain (mother, deceased), Dr. Christoper Owen Cain (father, deceased), Dr. Celica Patricia Cain (wife, deceased), Dr. Caroline Patricia Cain (daughter), Dr. Xavier Owen Cain (son, adopted)-_

He blinks.

_"-I’m afraid something came up and I had to go-"_

His processors whir in recognition as he builds his hypothesis.

Four of those family members are notable enough to have their own links to their own articles, and "Dr. Xavier Owen Cain" is one of them.

_Dr. Xavier Owen Cain, twenty-eight years old-_

He thinks. That age does seem to fit X's physical appearance.

_"-he’s practically my father, in a way, if you can sympathize with that-"_

_-decorated theoretical physicist and autonomous roboticist...currently holds PhDs in theoretical physics and autonomous robotics, but has published papers and is recognized in several branches of philosophy (metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and esthetics most notably), several branches of bioengineering (in large part biochemical and biomedical), microfluidics, and thermodynamics..._

An editorial comment states how  _"superhuman"_ Dr. Xavier Owen Cain's accomplishments seem. He tries the smile at that.

It feels wrong.

He drops it.

_History: Xavier Owen Cain, originally Guang Xia Yang (阳光夏), was born to Tuo Ma Yang (阳托马), a talented surgeon and Han immigrant, and Dr. Marian Ray Ernest, an Abel citizen and renowned radiologist-_

That's...strange.

(He tries X's skeptical face. This one feels right.)

But he checks, and the images, though almost all of them are distance shots, are X. X, with his brown, mussed human hair and tired green eyes. X, with his rumpled human clothes. X, being wastefully and wonderfully expressive.

_-was adopted by Dr. Cedric Owen Cain shortly after having interned with him on the Integrate Reploid project...legally changed his name in dedication to the man. Dr. Xavier Owen Cain currently works at Abel City University (ACU, Abel City's community college) as a professor in theoretical physics-_

_"-be seeing you soon."_

_Beeeeep._

The message ends again.

The door to the lab opens as the holo-communicator spits out, _"'Message From X' Played: 86 times. If you would like to repeat, press_   _Pl_ _ay."_

Dr. Cedric Owen Cain just stands in the door, staring at him, for a few seconds.

He stares back.

Then, shaking his head, the man walks in.

"First things first," Dr. Cain states in good humor. "That, my dear boy, is considered quite 'creepy.'"

He sets the search.

_Creepy, adjective, causing-_

The man holds up a hand after adjusting his size small lab coat.

"And don't deny me from hearing your thought processes, please. I'm getting old, and it's one of my few remaining pleasures in life."

He blinks.

"Creepy, adjective," he begins, "causing an unpleasant feeling of fear or unease."

"Good," Dr. Cain rewards him while neatly unpacking his bag. "Know why? It's 'obsessive.' Try that one."

"Obsessive, adjective." Why is he doing this? This man is not X. "Thinking about something or someone, or doing something, excessively."

"That's right," Dr. Cain says. The man pulls out a sheaf of paper and plods to the worktable. "And I'm sure you've been studying social behaviors on the internet, courtesy of our stellar network speed here at Cain Labs, but here's a tip, from me to you." The papers are placed just above where his head is on the table. "People tend to find 'obsessive' behavior extremely 'creepy,' so I'd suggest you never let poor X know how many times you've ogled his message."

The embarrassment comes naturally this time.

"Of course, knowing him, he'd be quite flattered," the Doctor mutters, stroking his beard. "But I digress! I am Dr. Cedric Cain, old fart and roboticist, in that order, and I will be your repairman today."

It takes him a moment to gather his wits after that debacle.

"...Where's...X?" he asks, completely disregarding the introduction.

Dr. Cain pouts. 

"Hello to you too, Mister. I'm fine, thank you," the man grumbles, and waves a hand at him. "Oh, don't mind me, I'm just a bitter old coot. X, however- isn't he fascinating, that one? Back at his day job."

Day job, day job...

_Dr. Xavier O. Cain currently works at-_

"At...Abel City University?"

Dr. Cain chuckles. "Oh, so you're stalking him as well, are you?"

No, that's not-

"..."

He's at a loss.

The man waves a hand at him again. "Just teasing. Yes, prized Professor Xavier Cain's back at ACU just in time for dead week."

He blinks, finds that he's using a confused expression. Here is his confirmation, but...

"X's name is...Xavier?"

Dr. Cain seems to take a moment to consider.

"Well, yes, and no," Dr. Cain answers. "And I'll get to that. We'll have plenty time to talk about it while I'm working- just let me grab some tools, get started on those mangled components of yours, and we need to go through the basics first. Standard Reploid Rearing conversation procedure."

He makes like a human, tilts his head in express confusion.

”...But I'm not a reploid."

Dr. Cain gives him a look, intrigued, as he plugs a thin, pointed tool into an outlet on the workbench.

"Then what, pray tell, do you think you are?"

The man quirks his eyebrows, and he's faced with no rational answer.

_Reploid- an autonomous artificial intelligence that is capable of human thought and emotion-_

According to Abel City, he is a reploid by every right. But X said-

"X said I'm not a reploid," he says. "He said I'm like him. An android."

Dr. Cain clicks his tongue.

"Well... I suppose he's correct," Dr. Cain says, giving the tool a few experimental clicks. Sparks arc across the thing's shaft, and he suddenly feels very uncomfortable having that in him despite his inability to feel pain. "This is actually a good place to start. Tell me, what definition of 'reploid' are you operating with here?"

"The one on-," another arc of electricity. He winces by instinct, not by simulation, "-the one on the Abel City Informational Website."

"Ah, yes," Dr. Cain says, setting the tool down. He feels distinctly safer. "'An autonomous robot capable of human thought and emotion.' Not technically _wrong._ "

He assumes the implication there is not technically  _right_ either.

"But, do tell, by that definition, are you not a reploid?"

He tries to offer some defense, but nothing comes to mind. Isn't he technically an "autonomous artificial intelligence that is capable of human thought and emotion?" Isn't X?

Dr. Cain casually pulls another thin instrument out of the pile from his bag, this one scissor-like in appearance, but when he plugs it in and presses the button, the blades instantaneously heat to red-hot, and a high-pitched whining sound pierces the lab air.

"...Yes?"

He feels a very real need to bust out of his manacles and-

( _snap the thing snap his neck save yourself_ )

-run. It's a shame his motor controls are cut.

Dr. Cain depresses the button, apparently satisfied with the functionality of his now completely cooled tool, and sets it off to the side with the spark-stick.

 _Precision steel alloy_   _cutter_ , his processors inform him, _and SNE tester._

"Indeed," Dr. Cain says. "So what's the difference between an android and a reploid?"

_Android, noun-_

"And do remember to speak aloud."

"Android, noun," he says. "An autonomous artificial intelligence that is capable of...human thought and emotion."

"Also from the Abel City Website, am I right?"

"...Yes."

Dr. Cain nods and brings out yet another instrument. This one's short, cylindrical, and bulky, but when the man tests it, a controlled, glowing blue laser blade, perhaps less than a millimeter thick, protrudes a centimeter from the contraption. At the flick of a switch, the thing telescopes out, so that the blade is connected to a thin base that gradually becomes thicker. Around three quarters of a foot in total.

"And another question is," Dr. Cain says, "do you think you're an android because you're confident you're an android, or is it because X thinks you're an android, and you are unwilling to think differently?"

The man holds the contraption horizontally, plucks a hair from his beard, and drops it on the blade.

One hair becomes two.

( _Laser scalpel_ , his processors inform him, helpfully.)

He has no answer.

"...As I thought." There's disappointment in the Doctor's voice. "X does that to people like you; he can't help it. He's magnetizing, isn't he?"

His grasp of the Doctor's words is slipping.

"...Sorry?"

"Oh, no, no, I was getting too complicated too quickly. My apologies," Dr. Cain says, shutting off the instrument and collapsing it again. "But back to the original point- It's not you, or in fact X, who's at fault here. The administration of Abel omits one certain detail relating to the classification of 'reploid'- by the way, I'm getting ready to open your chest cavity, so if you could just relax for a second-"

_Wait, wait waitwait-_

He glances apprehensively at the Doctor's three death tools. All of them are already plugged in and functional, primed and ready-

Dr. Cain rummages around in his pocket and proceeds to pop his chest open with what looks to be a credit card.

"-there."

He stares.

"Anyways, as I was saying," says the man, pocketing his credit card. "You are not stupid. Yes, those definitions on the website are the exact same, and yes, there is supposed to be a difference. And yes, in this respect, as in many things, my boy is correct. You are not a reploid. You are an android."

He hopes he's making his eyes look bewildered enough, because he can't express his confusion in words.

"Need more? You see, the definition of 'reploid' on the site is colloquial. The actual definition is 'a replica android based off the blueprints of the first known android,' etc. etc." Dr. Cain waves his hand. He notes that as the man's tic, like X's tendency to mess with his hair. "Thus, you can be a reploid and an android simultaneously, but it's also possible to be an android that's not a reploid. Squares and rectangles. Small distinction in an ideal world. There are some dire complications that we'll get into later- but dating your components, you are certainly not a reploid. Congratulations."

That does alleviate some of his concerns, but ultimately, what he's really confused about-

"A card..." he whispers. "You opened my chest...with a credit card." His systems tell him there's something fundamentally wrong with that.

Dr. Cain chuckles and pats his coat pocket.

"Oh, this old thing?" the man muses. "That's an old trick. Works on X, works on all the reploids, so I thought it might work on you. Don't worry about the security. I'd say maybe three people- that's me, Caroline, and maybe X- know how to do it."

He's left speechless again.

"I personally think it's more delicate than the alternative."

Dr. Cain pulls out a behemoth of a thing from his stack of unpacked tools with adjustable components all over it. It makes him wince again.

"But anyways," Dr. Cain continues, putting the mess away in his bag, "I guess what I should've started with, and I didn't, because I am simply terrible at first impressions, is that I'm not here to interrogate you, or put you in danger, or make you question yourself; though I have to say I've already messed up in that regard."

He notices that when Dr. Cain smiles, it crinkles his eyes like when X smiles.

"I'm here to fix you, and guide you, and teach you," Dr. Cain says. "Believe me, you're in capable hands."

He believes him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. Leave a thing?


	4. Zero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "That's quite the burden you've got there."

The streets are teeming.

He's bulky. His feet fall like stone on the sidewalk, marring the flawless white of concrete that sprawls up the walls in either direction. The crowd scuttles in around him, glancing back as they pass, glowering at him for his footprints.

 _People_ , he insists.  _People_ , to the vindictive hissing of the thing slammed against the back of his mind.

The cafe. It's just on the next corner, all soothing earthy tones and ambient atmosphere like sunset embodied in decor. X and Dr. Cain have already taken up a table outside, one chair open. He can see them chatting over colorful drinks, and all he can think is, androids don't need colorful drinks. Androids don't need drinks.

 _But androids do need company_.

He continues to trek towards the cafe, each footfall ringing like a gunshot over the bustle of the colony around. X notices him and stands.

He absorbs, with great surprise, the lack of human clothing. X's body is down to the components, to the parts that make him an android, wire and nanite fluid and titanium alloy. X waves at him, and the mechanisms in his joints whir, contract, and expand in plain view. He's saying something, grinning. Dr. Cain is leaning back into his chair, yelling.

He can't hear them over the swarms of people rushing around him.

He runs towards them, leaving great big tracks in his wake, banging out a war into the street with each resonating step. Just a couple more meters-

Something slides in his way.

"Hey, you," the ant growls, "can't you watch where you're going? You just knocked over my wife-"

He tries to push past it, but it bangs on his arm.

"I'm talking to you, bub! Can't you have a little respect for-"

He shoves it, but it remains stubbornly in his way.

"-stupid machine, I can have you decommissioned, y'know? I swear, reploids, useless pieces of scrap metal- I'm reporting this to the police-"

He stops, frustrated, and turns to his obstacle. It's a human, female, young, and squeaky. It's in his  _way_.

"-for the love of God, are you even listening to me? Of course not-"

"What do you  _want?_ " he snarls. The woman just barely flinches away.

"I  _want_ you to  _apologize_ ," she bites back and points.

He traces the woman's arm to a point back down the block. A figure is leaning against the white building there.

And then he looks at where X and Dr. Cain are sitting, looking on with concern, just a few steps away. Going back would be a waste of time.

He makes to swat the woman to the side.

But then...

But then-

 

He runs the numbers.

He reconsiders.

If he swats the woman to the side-

A variety of things can happen.

_96% chance of law enforcement getting involved._

_99% chance of a commotion from the crowd around._

_43% chance the woman dies, provided the the power he'd planned to put in the motion._

_Meaningless death is-,_  he runs simulations, documents the various delicate systems death upsets to soothe the pounding in the back of his head. He finds his conclusion. _Wasteful. Inconvenient._

 _Wrong_ , he insists.

He looks up again.

_100% chance of upsetting X._

_100% chance of disappointing Dr. Cain._

He looks back at the woman.

It's illogical.

He turns from the cafe and walks back down the block towards the figure leaning against the building.

* * *

His senses surface from their water-like hibernation. Dr. Cain smiles from his seat at his side.

"Nicely done."

The manacles are gone. With slight trepidation, he props himself onto his elbows and sits up. Shakily. With a great, creaking cacophony.

Ten days since X left.

"Is that-," his vocal systems click and whir, trying to start back up from disuse. Five days of testing, his systems tell him, and though he couldn't remember anything while undergoing the process, it all comes rushing back. "Is that the last of them?"

"Yes," Dr. Cain affirms, steadying him into a position against the wall. The man's eyes are bright. "Yes, it is. Congratulations!"

He stays propped, gaze trained on the ceiling. His inner diagnostics report that the nanite repair system that the Doctor had fixed up, part of his Necessary Functions, had finished the rest of the repair job in his hibernation. His joints feel...stiff. Creaky.

New.

"Do you have some oil?" he asks, and it takes barely any effort to add that extra touch of weariness to his voice.

Dr. Cain hands him a canister of some mystery lubricant that he takes and doesn't even analyze before drinking. He leans back and sighs (something he's picked up, he's proud to say) as he feels his nanites disperse the material to secretion ports around his joints. Experimentally, he lifts his arm.

Silent.

He smiles at that. Naturally. 

"Your rating on the tests," Dr. Cain begins, "Full marks. No reploid first law programming either- just pure android logic."

He nods absently, slowly and smoothly bends each finger as he says, "And those tests were... strangely vivid."

"Indeed," the Doctor responds, pulling a clipboard from the nearby desk.

He throws a glance that he hopes looks curious at the man.

"Simulations?"

After quickly scribbling a couple note down, Dr. Cain looks up and shrugs.

"Something like that."

"Old man, please-"

" _Oy_ ," Dr. Cain retorts quickly, "I can call myself that. You can't. This'll teach me to let androids get too comfortable around me. You give an android an inch, and they start calling you _'old,'_ and then next thing you know, they'll somehow convince you to _adopt_ them-" A few more notes. Over the past few days, he's found where X got his propensity for rambling. "-But those  _were_ simulations- of real life events."

He stops fiddling with his fingers and blinks (inquisitively, he thinks). The latest test comes to mind.

"So..." he says. "That woman. In the cafe scenario, the one who was cursing reploids. She's out there right now?"

Dr. Cain hums, checking a box on his papers. "Camilla Carillo, successful bioengineer, married a blind florist; one Mrs. Xing Mei Li, the one you knocked over."

"So she _is_ out there?"

"Dead," a check, and a check, "On record as being the first Maverick attack victim."

He falls silent.

"The two brothers in the parking garage then," he says after a while, "what about those two?"

"Oliver and Stephen Stewart, both economists I think." Check. "Also dead. A passing surgical assistance reploid."

"The old woman in the alleyway-"

"Martha Kirsten Allen, famous writer and philosopher, died in an alleyway at eighty-four when her companion reploid went maverick."

Check. Check.

He hesitates.

"The boy at the pool...?"

"Little Johnny," Dr. Cain says, pen hovering over his papers. "Bright boy. He's still alive."

The wave of relief he feels is a relief in and of itself. Because meaningless death is just wastef-  _wrong,_ he repeats to himself, _wrong._

"A lifeguard reploid almost suffocated him with a towel when he was eleven. He barely survived because of a quick response from the hunters, but suffered dire and irreversible brain damage from the encounter." The Doctor gives him a conciliatory smile. Check. "He's currently eighteen and a spokesperson for maverick research I think. It's because of him that we have the funding we have. Kid flunked outta high-school, but he's still doing good things for the world."

The conversation breaks down when he can't find an appropriate way to respond. He's left to ponder and search as the Doctor continues marking up his paper.

Something hits him.

"All of these test scenarios," he voices, uncertain. "You put the subject in the place of the maverick."

Dr. Cain unclamps his topmost paper and places it neatly on the growing pile on the worktable. The man's expression has grown slightly haggard over the past few days, he notices.

"Well, yes," Dr. Cain responds. "Unfortunate. I'm as aware as you are of how...problematic that is. You remember I told you we've been unable, so far at least, to pinpoint the exact cause of maverick mentality?"

He nods. It had been part of his intensive three day introduction to the world.

Dr. Cain sets his clipboard down.

“Because of this, these simulations are probably our most reliable way of detecting mav behavior. We extract sensory data from a maverick’s memory storage once they’ve been… ‘retired’-“

_Euphemism- a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or-_

“-and we turn that into a simulation, given the permission of the victims’ next of kin, of course. Certain things are adjusted. Motivation, mostly, digging into the memory banks, is customized to each subject by searching the values stored in variable 43-83, and... Glad to see I'm so interesting, son." Dr. Cain's tone is flat. Perhaps he shouldn't have let his eyes glass over in displays so blatantly. "Anyways, the simulation replicates almost everything about the incident and also disables memory of any previous instances of testing, so don't think it'll be easier next time."

He blinks. "Next time?"

Dr. Cain nods sagely.

"Next week."

He searches standard reploid activation procedure. _Annually_ , it says.

"So soon?"

"Afraid-," Dr. Cain lets out a slow, gaping yawn, "-Excuse me, haven't pulled this many all-nighters in a row since college- but yes, afraid so. Special case."

"...Is it because I don't have the reploid laws?"

Dr. Cain gathers his papers. There's something oddly deliberate about the motion of his hands, the way he tucks the edges just so, smoothing the sides until nothing juts out. Just right. Perfect.

"Yes."

The Doctor leaves no room for response.

He listens as Dr. Cain patiently goes over his documents with him before placing them into a crisp blue folder. He stores all of the information. His identification number, all the operations he'd gone through, energy intake and consumption per second, the unorthodox make of his parts, Dr. Cain's comments on his test results- everything. Including his designation.

"DWN-∞," Dr. Cain states in a low voice, punctuating it with a whistle. "Found it in your systems. That's quite the burden you've got there."

Something rings in recognition in his processors. That's him. That's  _him_.

"Infinity," he muses. "Endless. Limitless."

"Indeed. At least that old coot Light had the decency to be subtle about it." Dr. Cain shakes his head. "But no, we're not calling you 'Infinity,' son."

Disappointment. That's what this feeling is called. Because that's  _him_ , so why?

"Why not?" he asks.

"CRI's already given you a name," Dr. Cain answers. Shuffling through the few papers still unexplained, he picks out one that's adorned with a wax seal at the top, the seal of the Council of Reploid Integration, he finds.

He can feel his eyebrows unconsciously furrow.

"Zero," he reads.

"Zero," Dr. Cain affirms.

He considers the name, follows the harsh strokes of pen through the edges of the "Z" into the ponderous connected lines of "e" and "r," to open, vapid, empty "o."

It's...wrong.

"I don't like it."

Dr. Cain takes the paper away, places it in the blue folder with all the rest, and sighs.

"Neither do I, son," the Doctor says. "Neither do I, but their word is law."

The implication is that he has to accept it then? He's nothing?

Zero.

 _I'm Zero_.

(It's... wrong.)

"If it makes you feel any better, X wanted to call you 'Goldilocks.'"

And the mood is broken. He and the Doctor share a laugh, because they've both seen the hair that he'd come with, both realized his balance systems are irreversibly dependent on it, and both found it utterly and perfectly ridiculous. He's looking forward to having that mane of blonde synth-hair back on his blank head.

(If only because, according to Dr. Cain, he can't stand without it.)

"Speaking of X," Dr. Cain says, casually filing the rest of the papers away. Despite his curiosity, he,  _Zero_ (he reminds himself, hoping to get used to it), just assumes they're unimportant. "He's finished your core and shipped it to the lab. We can finally get you off the charger."

Dr. Cain pulls out a small metal container and begins to reorganize his tools.

"Aren't you tired?" Zero asks, uncertain, as the man tests something that spits a near microscopic cone of blue-hot flame. He can feel it from here.

Dr. Cain waves a hand at him, and the motion causes the fire to waver beside the tool in his other hand. Dangerously.

"I'll get this and the synth-hair attachment surgery done before I bring you home and get some rest," the Doctor says dismissively. "If my boy can do a 5-20 on empty, I can do some simple component operations on three hours of stolen sleep."

"It's different though."

"I have decades of experience. Trust me."

"My processors say you're exhausted to a point beyond reason-"

"This is nothing, boy. I'm a responsible man."

Dr. Cain pushes him back to lying position and systematically disables his synthetic nerve systems. He feels fearful and simultaneously relaxed. Somehow.

"Would you like to be awake?" Dr. Cain asks.

Zero considers.

"Yes."

With the press of a series of keys, his motor systems are cut.

Dr. Cain brandishes his credit card.

"Relax," the Doctor says. "You're going to be just fine."

(Somehow, he manages it.)

Dr. Cain opens the container.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *When you have no idea how to end a chapter, so you just throw an abrupt sentence thing at the ceiling and hope it sticks.
> 
> First of all, [this garage model kit](https://imgur.com/91vYIuR) is probably a good timer for when my interest wanes. Maybe. Idk. It's supposed to looks like [this](http://61.63.55.131/55944/product_24341056_o_3.jpg) and I'm only that far. I'm trying to find somebody to paint it and glaze it in acrylic, that I know in real life of course, hehexd. I just wanted to show it off because making custom ball joints for the shoulders was a pain.
> 
> Second, I won't post for probably another two or three weeks, because I'm going off to see family away from home for spring break. I'm not going to assume that this story's consistent enough to be worth apologizing for a late update, but I do kind of feel bad about it, so...sorry??? ^^'
> 
> Lastly, there've been two new things on [Scribbles From X](https://imgur.com/a/6PQq2). Take a look if you want!
> 
> Anyways, thanks for reading! Leave any comments + criticisms below, yell at me if there are any typos, and have a nice break if you're on spring break, etc.


	5. Black and Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It looks broken.
> 
> It looks bruised.
> 
> It looks...beautiful.

What Dr. Cain pulls out is a dim and unassuming sphere, lines of arcglass welding branching out in a web across its surface. Zero perhaps expected...more? But here it is.

His core.

Dr. Cain holds it up for inspection, stroking a hand through his beard.

"Top-notch job, isn't it?" the man says, a proud lilt in his voice. "It was a bit of a unique case, but it's just...beautiful."

 _Beautiful_.

He has searched up reploid cores, and they're not supposed to look like  _that_. Even disregarding the patched cracks, the mismatched levels of wear on the components, and the distortions on the welded surface, it's not even the right shape.

Reploid cores are cylindrical.

(But he's not a reploid, is he?)

"It's...nice?" he tries. He knows it's not "beautiful," but he just wants it back in him, to patch this hole in his chest.

" _Nice?_ " Dr. Cain scoffs. The man pulls out some thin tools from the workbench drawers and begins to fiddle with the thing. "I'd say you would be hard-pressed to find a more wonderful repair job anywhere, son."

He peers down at his core. He hates to doubt X, but...

"It barely looks functional," he admits.

The Doctor throws him a a glance from the corner of his eye as he works.

"Well," the man says, with a dramatic harrumph, "you wouldn't know, now would you?"

Zero knows it's in jest, but it's still true. The only thing he has is what's on the internet, and as far as the majority of the internet is concerned, reploids and androids are one and the same.

So, he concedes, "I guess." If his locomotion weren't cut, he would be fidgeting, because his processors tell him he's taken a massive blow to his pride. "I just...don't see it."

And he  _wants_ to. He wants to find it awe-inspiring and wonder at its glory, because he's grateful, really. At least, that's probably what this sensation should be called, mixed, as it is, nebulously with disappointment and confusion and fear and—

"That's what I'm here for, I suppose," Dr. Cain muses off-handedly, poking at the patchwork core until a port slides open. "I'll just have to show you."

Then, with little else as warning, the man deftly props the lid of Zero's chest up with his readied credit card and pulls out a conversion cord.

"Aren't you going to test stability first?" he questions anxiously. He trusts Dr. Cain, and he trusts X, but he also values his safety and the older Doctor's life. The core looks like it would leak radiation and coolant if lightly jostled.

"It's stable," Dr. Cain assures him.

That doesn't help.

But he can't move. And...and he's sorely come to regret consenting to awareness, because all he can do is watch as the man hooks him up to the core, as the conversion cord's connection activates the sphere's continuous fission-fusion system. Pale light speckles in the center of the core. A low electrical hum permeates the air. The sound of coolant thrumming with the heavy rhythm of blood beneath the core's clear shell taps out a mechanical lullaby against Dr. Cain's hand.

And then color blooms—from the center, slowly creeping to the outer reaches of the thing, refracting through arcglass mended cracks like glowing, pulsating veins. The soft blue light of the sphere itself glows brilliant and clear through the largest shards and dim in the smallest, gradients of black and blue playing across the surface of this deceptively fragile thing.

It looks broken.

It looks bruised.

It looks...beautiful.

The still-empty imprint in his chest aches as he watches color waltz lazily about the—no,  _his_ core. The thought sets something to motion in his emotional processors.

"There is often beauty to be found in repaired things, you see," Dr. Cain explains to his enamored audience. "The threadbare feeling of a quilt thrice patched. The sentimentality of a coat that's seen too much radiation and has four sown-on buttons of varying sizes. The determination of a mentally disabled young man robbed of his future standing in front of a crowd of hundreds, all to prevent the same thing from happening to others." The man gives a gesture to the gift in his hands. "And the strange comfort of a core that's been shattered into tens of jagged shards, welded with replacement pieces from a new friend. Fully functional, yet familiar. In some ways the same, and in others, better."

Unconsciously, Zero feels an overwhelming urge to touch the thing.

Consciously, he's drawing connections from Dr. Cain's words. Repaired things imply the surmounting of some obstacle, recovery from hardship, betterment from mistake. Improvement is always positive, progress encouraged, his processors tell him. It makes sense that repaired things hold a certain allure despite their imperfections.

"I do see it," he states earnestly. "I do see how repaired things are beautiful."

Dr. Cain's widely smiling expression is indecipherable. Perhaps satisfaction, from having conveyed his message...?

Or gravitas, a lack of belief in his depth of understanding, but consideration for his efforts.

Or just...dazed happiness?

Or, perhaps—

The old man erupts into peals of gleeful cackling, carefully fitting the core into Zero's chest cavity despite the laughter-induced shaking of his hand. With a pat, he locks the thing in place.

Zero is shooting him his best, and first, dirty look. He files that smiling expression under "impish delight."

"Sorry, sorry, my boy," Dr. Cain says tearfully. "When you've given that same speech—sans the last few lines, of course—maybe fifty odd times, it gets harder and harder to take it seriously when reploids—androids—receive it like it's the word of God."

He fails to comprehend the humor in that (and also the lack of ceremony in putting something so important in him thank you very much). Dr. Cain is sleep-deprived, he thinks. Dr. Cain isn't coherent, he thinks. Dr. Cain is a bit of a jerk, he thinks, being a little over-eager to use that word from the older man’s various rantings.

The Doctor then connects him to a monitor with a cable that has a long, rod-shaped head (ChR-15, he remembers, to document energy allocation) and slumps back into his chair.

"We'll give it an hour to monitor the effect of the core's activity on your systems, make sure the connection's stable," Dr. Cain says. "Then we'll return control of your limbs and get those lustrous golden locks back on you, eh?"

* * *

Zero soon finds that teflon hair, no matter how thin, is pretty heavy in these quantities and doesn't really fall like real hair. Nor does it even come close to X's synthetic hair, for a more achievable standard. But when he stands, he can see why. The blonde strands provide a counter-balance to his strangely forward-heavy body design, and they bring his center of gravity pretty low. He feels stable with the hair. 

He fiddles with it in front of the mirror. It doesn't look that bad.

He feels...nice with the hair.

"I'm almost ready," Dr. Cain calls, putting away some instruments behind him. Zero shudders as he remembers the laser scalpel melting the edges of the synthetic skin of his face and neck to the accessory’s scalp base. He’s glad that thing is out of sight.

That being said, "almost" means he still has time for himself. He turns back to the mirror. Self-consciously, he straightens his clothes. They're special-issue, Dr. Cain had said, made for reploid comfort and use after repair until they can get fitted with skin or armor.

In truth, that just means the cloth around the joints is cut.

But despite the coarse texture of his hair and the shoddy attire, he finds himself admiring his reflection. He doesn't know... _why_ , seeing as he hasn't really researched human standards of attractiveness, but somehow, some way, he feels entirely comfortable in the bare-bones construction of his chassis, stripped as it is of the armor that he, for some reason, is not allowed to have. Something in the curve of his brow, something in the sheen of his not-quite-real hair, something in the sharp cut of his facial support structure sends a trill of pride through his systems.

It feels...pre-programmed.

(But that doesn't mean it can't feel good, right?)

He feels an inexplicable need to reassure himself that yes, he  _i_ _s_  beautiful, even by human standards. Dr. Cain's mutterings about humanity's strange preference for blonde hair and blue eyes (and also, jokingly, about him being "a damned Aryan," which he has been told not to search up) helps to sate his pride for the moment.

His sensors pick up movement from behind.

"You get fixated pretty easily, don't you?" Dr. Cain questions, his bag slung back around his gaunt frame. Zero can just barely read the tilt of the man's eyebrow as an "unimpressed" expression, so he prepares himself for another behavioral lesson. "I wouldn't stare at my reflection in the mirror for too long. At least, if I were you." There it is.

"Why not?" he asks back.

Dr. Cain shrugs. "It implies vanity, narcissism, hubris," the man says in reply. "Lots of bad things. Of course, this isn't really  _vital_ , but just know that some people take it the wrong way when you enjoy the way you look a bit too much."

Zero, begrudgingly internalizing the Doctor's advice, steps away from the mirror and follows him outside, stumbling every step or so as his balance matrix makes sudden adjustments. In the hall, they pass a bespectacled man. The man looks up at him—

(fascination, curiosity, embarassment)

—then quickly looks away.

Zero concludes, as they make it to the door, that human inhibition is strange.

* * *

Dr. Cain’s car is a bulky, eight-seated thing with tinted windows and solar paneling on the roof. Zero has familiarized himself with Abel City’s regulation self-driving car, so the lack of steering wheel isn’t as alarming as it had been when he’d first seen the pictures. The old doctor opens the door with a bit of difficulty given his frail stature and gestures him in, letting the thing click closed behind them before the dark interior hums to life.

”She’s not very flashy,” Dr. Cain states off-handedly as a screen turns on in front of him for path programming, “but she’ll get you where you need to go safely. Bullet-proof, energy absorbent material on the chassis, direct, private link to GPS satellite, and a solar storage cell that’ll keep her running for a month of cloudy days.” A little sigh. “It really pays to be a government dog sometimes.”

With that, the car smoothly glides into motion.

Zero watches the sky open up through the windshield as they drive out into the day, taking note that the deep blue is much more compelling in person than in photograph. Something about how expansive it is, unbounded by the edges of a standard landscape image, but rather by the extent that one can see—something about that is seductive to his processors.

He feels a tap against his arm.

Dr. Cain holds out a small, disc-shaped device, about the diameter of a zenny, and about the same width too. It's clear with copper wiring and some miniscule mechanism within.

"Put this in your right communicator cone," the doctor commands. The tone of his voice leaves little room for negotiation. "It's an ID disc, and you're required to have it on at all times until further instruction from the CRI. Standard procedure."

Zero takes the thing, feels it give a little under his fingers. It's flexible, adhesive on one side, and...delicate. It slips perfectly over the red receiver of his communicator cone, but, well...

"This is uncomfortable," he states bluntly. "It's muffling my connections."

Dr. Cain gives him a tight, sympathetic smile. "I'm sorry, Zero," he says, "I've held off on it as long as I could, but we're coming up to the security checkpoint, so I'm afraid you're going to have to bear with it for the time being."

He rubs at the thing.

"And don't do that," Dr. Cain says. "Keep it clean, and that'll prevent any further discomfort."

Zero falls back into the car seat, resigned. As Dr. Cain said, it seems he'll just have to bear with it for the time being. That doesn't mean he has to be happy about it.

The car slows to a stop at a metal gate. _Solid_ , his sensors read. _Nearly impenetrable._ A voice comes from the booth to their side.

" _Doctor_ ," the voice acknowledges, " _Good morning._ "

"Morning to you too, Skipper," Dr. Cain greets genially. "I hear that replacement joint's been doing well for you?"

" _Wonders, sir,_ " comes the reply. " _The hosing from that core fallout knocked the old one straight out. I was lucky Prof. X was still around the lab to help. You know, violating every human safety procedure we have and all. Swear your boy's gonna get cancer someday, Doctor."_

Dr. Cain chuckles, probably partially due to how Zero is visibly connecting the dots in his head.

"Well, I'm too old to hover over him, and he's too old to be hovered over," the man says. "He'll be fine. How's that scan?"

" _You're clean as ever, Doc. Cargo's been ID'd and cleared for transport._ "

Zero raises an eyebrow.  _Cargo?_

Dr. Cain waves a hand at him.  _I'm sorry. Just let it pass_.

"Thank you, Skipper. Cool off your processors a bit after this, okay?"

" _Will do._ _Have a nice day._ "

The gate edges open, revealing, bit by bit, the vibrant cityscape below. Sunlight glints white off of colored glass, of black and blue and green and red, projecting an air of cleanliness over the entire scene despite its lack of order. Roads, stitched between each stalwart skyscraper, in perpetual, chaotic movement, sprawl out in all directions.

It looks endless, and confounding, and, as Zero's processors tell him, fascinating.

The car begins to move once again.

"It's about a two hour drive to the House," Dr. Cain tells him. "In the meantime...Well, I hope you don't mind if I black the windows. I would like to catch a bit of sleep on the way, if that's fine by you."

Zero stares longingly out at the buildings and the sky.

He nods.

Dr. Cain gives him a grateful smile. With a click of a button, the windows darken, and the blue of the sky and the colorful cityscape are quickly swallowed.

The man settles back into his seat to nap.

Zero leans back to stare at the ceiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I thought I'd come back from Spring Break rested and ready to write, but I ended up RPing a lot in the spare moments I had when I was out of state. I found out I'm pretty bad at RPing. I also found out I was experiencing a smidge of burnout. 
> 
> ...But it'll be okay. Probably.
> 
> Be sure to notify me of typos or errors! I'm pretty tired rn orz


	6. VAVA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "That ain't standard procedure, friend," the purple reploid drawls, tapping his own (bare) communicator disc.

Something drags him out of his light hibernation into glaring sunlight.

Zero’s informational processor and battle protocols respond quicker than his visual displays, and within a fraction of a second, before he can even _see,_ he has the perpetrator pinned by the neck to leather car seats. He could eliminate his target now if he so wishes, but he picks up signals from the car itself and immediately resolves that he cannot leave the footage of this encounter in unknown hands. His processors fire off at light speed, gathering environmental data—STATIONARY LOCATION, CONTROL PANEL THREE FEET AWAY, ELECTRIC BATTERIES UNDER FLOOR—

 _LITHIUM ION_ _,_ his sensors bark. Just a heavy blow and one good spark. His processors calculate he could burst out of this vehicle faster than a lithium ion battery explosion, and they come up with a very dismal possibility of the enemy doing the same. Not to mention his optical sensors, after just under a half second, have begun to resolve. A figure solidifies beneath him and it looks far too gangly to break through a heavily armored car—

And then he looks, and it’s Dr. Cain. The elderly doctor’s eyes are wide with shock, body stiff in yet-to-be-realized fear.

 

(One second.)

 

Zero’s cognition returns to him like a strike of lightning.

 

(—looks far too gangly to break through a heavily armored car, so it shouldn’t be a problem to eliminate the thing. A _decent_ test of reflex at best, but—)

A _decent_ test of reflex at best, but still insufficient—

—still insufficient—

—insufficient, and weak—

_(Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong)_

He shakes his head, releasing the man as distress floods his previously dormant emotional processors and immediately, he is assaulted with questions of “what happened” and “are you still functional” and “what will X think” and—

He almost forms an apology before his communicators receive a piercing transmission that knocks his systems out cold.

* * *

 (A blonde woman, forty-three years old, government research consultant and Director of the CRI’s Safety Regulation Branch, packs away her credit card as she boards the bus a couple streets down from her long-delayed two-hour honeymoon. She’s had to rush off early due to a routine inspection of _that_ facility, leaving a perfectly good steak to go cold with a very understanding husband.

She thumbs through her papers on the ride. There are far, far too many.

Within the hour, she’s trudging up the hill to reach the front door of the cursed building, but the sound of murmuring on the wind gives her pause. Her walk turns to a jog, and then to a run, and then the murmuring sharpens into the mechanical whisperings of a reploid crowd. She can _feel_ the lines worsening on her forehead with each passing step.

She finds Dr. Cedric Cain’s House For Reploid Acclimation’s front lobby crowded by concerned residents, and her face draws into sour resignation. She pushes past all of them, jiggling the door, sighing when it fails to open. With a swipe of her government-issued ID, she sees the man himself sitting next to a dormant android and gingerly applying ice to an ugly bruise around his neck.

She drops her inspection papers at the door.

“Dr. Cedric, what the hell happened here?” she questions furiously, moving the man’s hand to inspect the blotchy mess. Layers of green, blue, black, and purple mar Dr. Cain’s skin, and when she presses, he hisses in pain.

 _“Dammit, woman_ ,” he barks, “Would it _kill_ you to wait for an answer before you just _do_ something to an old man like me? I’m gonna _die_ soon, don’t you know?”

“Oh, stuff it, Cedric,” she rebukes shortly. “We both know you’ve got a couple decades left in you at worst. Just sit still and tell me what happened.”

The man snorts, crossing his arms at the waist

“Here to hit us with the regulation hammer again, aren’t you, Caroline?”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” she says, withdrawing a small canister from her bag. Shaking the thing, the pressure of her fingers stray a bit too close to an especially dark portion of the bruise—“accidentally,” of course.

The elderly man lets fly a few colorful phrases, and she takes the opportunity to spray the entirety of the bruise with a thin layer of cooling white foam. A minute passes in din as the foam dissolves into skin and works its magic. Dr. Cedric Cain’s yowling quiets soon after.

She settles back on her knees.

“Feel better?” she asks, one eyebrow raised.

He carefully feels the side of his neck, now cool to the touch.

“...Yes,” he admits, disgruntled.

The woman nods, packing the standard issue foam spray back into her bag, a new addition to the CRI’s code of reploid rearing. Young reploids often don’t know their strength.

She straightens her bag and stands, throwing a glance at the inactive android just a few paces away.

“Care to explain how an android that passed all of your simulations with flying colors—,” at this, she gestures, sarcastically, with jazz hands and wiggly fingers, “—still managed to do this?”)

* * *

 Zero wakes up, and the lights are dim.

It takes a second for his HCS, or Higher Cognitive Systems, to catch up to his processors. The pleasant warmth of the laboratory and the utter silence of his surroundings, peppered with soft pen scribbles...It takes a while, but they soon elicit something like comfort.

Until, of course, he remembers.

Immediately, he feels nothing. But then, he manages to coax out remorse, concern, a dash of panic, as he bolts up to sitting position, lacking the restraints that he reminds himself he certainly deserves. The other person in the room calmly places down the pen, straightens out a stack of papers, before turning to him.

A woman, Zero realizes.

 _Dr. Caroline Patricia Cain_ _,_ his processors clarify. _Dr. Cedric Owen Cain’s...daughter._

Hesitantly, he waves a hand in greeting. “Hello.”

Dr. Caroline nods in acknowledgement and rolls her chair closer to his seat. There, she stands.

“Zero,” she says, more as a statement than out of politeness.

“...Caroline,” he reciprocates, confused.

He sees it before she moves: a minute shift in her expression, in her shoulders, betraying her shamefully long wind-up. His hand is up in half the time it takes for him to authorize the action, and his processors fire off decisions faster than he can confirm them.

Then, his thoughts are interrupted by a piercing frequency released _right_ in his communicator.

He catches Dr. Caroline Cain’s fist, but his fingers don’t move like he had _intended_ _._ He’s paralyzed. Paralyzed! Anger flares up in his emotional processors—

—until he realizes he had _intended_ to crush the woman’s fist and snap her arm like the twig it was. Zero blinks, his cognition coming up to speed with his processors.

“Well, it’s as I suspected,” Dr. Caroline Cain says, shaking out her hand and glancing at a screen attached to the workbench head. “I suppose simulations eliminate the possibility of reflex parameters _this_ extreme, engaging only with cognition as they do.”

Zero gradually regains control over his body as the transmission in his communicator cuts out. He traces her line of sight and lands on a series of red displays on the screen, denoting analyses of pressure, energy usage, and, finally, a diagram of a human hand’s skeletal structure fracturing into several hundreds of pieces.

Dr. Caroline coughs.

A pause as he finds the words.

“Dr. Caroline Cain,” he begins, slowly withdrawing his hand back to his side. “Why?”

Not “why would you do this to me,” or “why would you hurt me,” but why: “why would you do something so stupid?” And the woman seems to understand.

She rubs her knuckles and sighs. “I have neither the need nor the time to set up a more scrupulous test when I’m off the CRI’s damn clock. Besides, I was nearly certain it would work.”

“Nearly certain is still _dangerous_ _,_ ” Zero states. “That was simply unacceptable! I could have snapped your _arm_ _—_ ”

“Unlikely,” she cuts in.

Zero stares blankly, too mentally occupied at the moment to emulate expression.

“Unlikely?” he questions.

“Unlikely,” she repeats, turning from him and approaching the desk with her papers and possessions. “With your regulator, which I had to adjust to keep up with your fritzy systems, _highly_ unlikely.”

Zero watches as she stiffly unbuckles her bag. His processors inform him that her making to leave without properly clarifying is simply _rude ._

“Regulator?” he asks loudly, trying to snap her attention back to him. “What regulator?”

She glances at him and taps her inner ear. “Regulator chip.”

He presses a finger to the inside of his communicator and feels flexible plastic.

“My ID disc,” he says, blank. “Standard procedure. Ever reploid has one.”

“Oh,” she responds, equally blank. “Is that what he’s calling them? Yes, your ‘ID disc.’ Standard procedure.”

Zero frowns, in an attempt to express the displeasure that’s building in his processors. He feels… what’s the word? Ah yes.

Cheated.

Before he can voice his concerns, Caroline gestures for him to allow her to speak, and the regulator plucks the words straight from his throat.

His processors _hiss_ in outrage.

“Before you rightfully accuse Cedric of lying—which, believe me, you will soon get used to—he did so with only the best intentions at heart,” the woman explains tersely as she packs away the last of her paperwork, smoothing out the smallest wrinkles, patting down even the slightest misalignments. “He wishes that reploids would not feel controlled. He wishes that reploids could develop and learn the world like children.”

He maintains his attentive glare through the lapse as she buckles her bag.

She meets his eyes. “Unfortunately, the Maverick threat is much too pressing to humor such human indulgence.” She points to a wall, and the panel, a one-way window, clears. “And I can see the hurt in your eyes. Before you do anything rash, consider first what happened simply because your regulator was a tad too slow.”

Zero turns to look.

Pressed against the clear material is the back of a dozing Dr. Cain’s head.

Peeking out from under a blue and white scarf, wrapped tight around the elderly doctor’s neck, is an ugly, blotchy bruise. Zero’s processors halt all passive processes as his optics catch on the sheer _size_ of the thing.

Caroline buckles her bag, unfeeling, uncaring, unfazed.

“Dr. Cain’s not doing anything for another day or two, so I would recommend seeing X to get those fritzy parameters fixed,” she says. “You are _far_ too high-strung.”

Caroline leaves.

Zero stares unmoving at blue and black and green.

* * *

 An hour passes before Dr. Cain disappears from the view of the window, and the door edges open. Zero perks as the man enters.

“Good evening, Zero,” the Doctor greets, as if he hadn’t been nearly strangled to death just earlier that day. The way he adjusts his scarf is impressively collected, dignified—stately even. “I take it Caroline has left?”

Zero nods.

“She left an hour, seventeen minutes, and thirty-three seconds earlier,” he answers, absent.

Dr. Cain shakes his head and begins to limp forward. Zero’s optics catch on the stuttering beat of his footsteps, on the way the man winces with each impact until he finally gets where he wants to go. He begins digging through the tools strewn about otherwise pristine lab tables.

“Well, she made sure to leave this place an absolute mess, as per usual,” the man mumbles as he begins stuffing instruments into their rightful places. “Oh, and the inspection had to be today! I can just imagine some of the ‘misdemeanors’ she’s marked down. Every scratch, every loose screw, every _dust mote_ …”

And then Dr. Cain lowers himself gingerly to the ground to reach a drawer, and his scarf shifts just enough to allow the beginnings of dark purple to peek out.

(Zero can’t look away.)

He hesitates, fingers clinking together as he tries to gauge how appropriate it would be for him to ask. He sees Dr. Cain freeze at the sound. Spurred by the Doctor’s unorthodox reaction, he reaches out for the man.

“Doctor, are you—”

His hand is smacked away.

With blank optics, Zero takes in the increasing distance between the Doctor and himself, the unconscious tremor in wrinkled hands, the slight dilation of fearful eyes.

He retreats.

Dr. Cain takes his time to recover, straightening with the aid of a nearby counter, but Zero can scout the regret in his posture.

He coughs. “...I’m...sorry, Zero. Quite sorry...my boy…” With an unsteady grip, he unwraps and rewraps his scarf, and Zero catches a glimpse of cold packs sewn into the inner lining, enough to cover the massive expanse of dark bruise beneath. “I was just… I can explain— I can—” _I can explain my fear, my distrust, my_ rightful distrust, _my—_

Dr. Cain can lie, and lie, and lie to make Zero feel better, but he can read the man’s adrenaline and cortisol like words upon a page.

(Like a strike across the—)

Zero tries his hand at X’s patient half-smile. It feels heavy on his lips.

“It’s fine, Doctor,” he says, quietly. He can’t quite manage soft, he thinks, so the best he can do is quiet, as he moves his hands in full sight to rest inert at his sides. “Really.” _I’m sorry._

Dr. Cain indulges in a fluttering sigh as he re-adjusts his scarf once more. “Right, right,” he says, but then begins to err. “Stay...here. I’ll send for an escort to show you around. For now, I just need to… I really need to sleep.”

“Of course, Doctor.”

The man nods. “Yes, I should do that. Just...just going to turn in early tonight, I suppose,” he murmurs, more to himself at this point. But on the way out the door, he still turns, and can still somehow plaster a smile onto his face as he says, “Goodnight, Zero.”

“...Goodnight.”

* * *

 

Another hour passes. Zero has nothing else to do but reflect on his transgressions for the longest of times, to choose between horror or boredom, so he is—

A knock sounds.

...he is no longer bored.

“Is this Zero?”

He looks up, and it’s a reploid, dull in color, standard male model, covered in inexpensive endo-armor plating. Likely to be sent soon to some military complex for security.

“Yes,” he confirms.

The reploid peers down at his paper, as if he truly needs to check it again, and lingers just a sufficient amount of time to emulate human behavior. He then looks up.

“I have been given the directive to escort you to your bedding chamber and introduce you to your roommate here at Dr. Cedric Cain’s House For Reploid Acclimation,” the reploid clearly enunciates, reading off his sheet. “There your roommate will introduce you to this facility’s purpose and hand you your acclimation itinerary.” He looks at the android again, patiently.

Zero nods and makes to set himself carefully onto the floor of the building, lowering himself slowly in order to avoid the ruckus—

“Oh, you have no need to bother with that sort of caution here,” the reploid states, going off script. “The floors are shock absorbant.”

Zero blinks, and, out of curiosity, sets his foot down with considerable force.

Hardly even a sound.

The reploid looks down at his paper once more, continuing his speech, “Everything in this facility is here to cater to reploid needs and reploid comfort.” He takes an exorbitant amount of time to flip the paper over, even fabricating a slight fumble. “We hope you enjoy your stay. Now,” a pause, “if you will follow me.”

The paper is tucked very carefully into a report file, avoiding even the slightest wrinkles, as the reploid stiffly gestures to the door.

Zero, at this point quite amused, makes his way over, and, on the way out, his guide flips a switch at the door. After a moment of equipment and loose objects sinking into embedded compartments, the room he assumed was a laboratory transforms. They now stand in a very normal looking living room.

The reploid gestures stiffly again.

“Right this way.”

Zero follows him out. They pad down a hallway lined with windows, all one-sided he assumes. He pauses at one and takes a peek inside, at a reploid sitting on the other side of a cafe table from a young female researcher with a holo-pad. The reploid tries in vain to imitate the researcher’s fluid movements in picking up a pen, but its fingers tremble and move like an infant’s in comparison. He watches the machine try, again and again, and again, and again, until—

“Nicely done,” he hears through the window.

The reploid, overjoyed, slips its control, and the pen snaps.

Zero turns away.

“I assume not every reploid is that slow,” he says to his guide as they move on.

“Whatever do you mean?” A very meticulously owlish blink. “That would be considered quite quick.”

Zero gives him what is probably an incredulous look. Are his various parameters—things like his learning systems and his reflexes—truly that much faster than the average reploid’s? He remembers Dr. Cain’s warning to be wary of vanity, but is criticizing an inferior being’s capabilities vanity? Perhaps a more appropriate term is “insensitivity,” but then another problem arises. Is _praising_ an inferior being dishonesty? Would it be better to criticize or praise? Either could lead to negative developmental consequences, he can see that, but he is incapable of escaping the loop of logic to determine a truly superior course of action for this issue to the point that his systems note that it would be easier for him to vaporize a reploid’s emotional microchip from a hundred yards away with a millimeter-diameter buster shot than to logick out an issue like—

Zero pauses for a barely noticeable nanosecond to ask himself, _Where did that come from?_

“Procedure requires that I remind you to ask my name,” his guide states, snapping him from his thought processes. “That is behavior typical of humans and acclimated reploids. ‘A stranger’s name makes a stranger less strange,’ I believe is what the instructor is supposed to say.”

“I know,” Zero says. “I know,” (because Dr. Cain told him), “I just don’t...”

Zero then realizes the next words out of his mouth would have been “care,” “about,” and “you.” The reploid guide stares at him so keenly, he suspects a rude and inconsiderate—

(but it’s true)

—response like that will waste more time than it will save.

“What is your name?” he asks, the perfect picture of polite curiosity.

The reploid nods. “My designation is DCOCN-906, named Gob.”

Zero relishes in his amusement.

“Well, Gob,” he starts. “Isn’t my instructor supposed to be human, like that reploid’s?”

“Well, I have been told that your case is a little bit special. By my instructor, of course.”

He blinks. “Special? In what way?”

Gob begins to aggressively rub at his chin, thinking. “Well, now that you have asked, I regret to inform you that I did not ask for her to specify,” the reploid says. And then, strangely, his voice modulates from its over-enthused tone. “It is best for reploids not to question orders, especially when they are issued by a human being, wouldn’t you say?”

Flat.

(Zero’s processors reel.)

He is caught off guard for the smallest of moments, but his answer is resolute.

“I would question orders if they were not clear,” he states. “Though loyalty is, by all accounts, and by all of my reading, an admirable trait, following another’s orders blindly could result in—”

Gob stops walking.

“I am sorry, I believe I am not hearing you clearly,” he clips primly. “Let us try once again. It is best for reploids not to question orders, especially when they are issued by a human being, wouldn’t you say?”

Zero, just a few steps ahead of him, pauses and turns.

(There is a razor glint in the reploid’s eyes that bores suspiciously into Zero’s core, accusing, ready to act upon the answer—)

After careful consideration, Zero nods. Slow.

“...Yes, good.” An unconvincing, overdrawn cough. “At any rate, what about you?” Gob inquires with a returned lilt to the end of his question. “What is your name?”

It takes a second to recover from mental whiplash, but surely, with thorough examination, he pieces back together the response he had prepared for just this occasion.

“You already know it,” he says, attentively. “Don’t ask inane questions.”

 _It’s_ _wasteful,_ he had thought of tacking on at first—

(Zero watches as X’s pen taps steadily on the workbench and considers how _wasteful_ an action it is—)

—no, that’s different, he resolves. That’s X.

“This is good practice,” Gob states firmly.

Through cautious optics, Zero inspects the reploid’s mannerisms, finds that Gob has returned to his kill-me-vibrant self, and decides that perhaps it is appropriate to continue like normal. So he sighs.

“My name is Zero,” he answers, enunciating each syllable clearly, just like Gob does.

“Good, good,” Gob says in immediate response. “It is nice to meet you, Zero.”

They continue down the hallway in silence.

“Procedure requires that I remind you to say that back to me, Zero.”

This walk could not be longer.

* * *

 Zero enters his room with much relief after that excruciating, rather strange “conversation” with Gob the guidance reploid. Despite his best efforts to slam the door for catharsis, a mechanism atop the thing slows it down enough to close with nought but the softest of clicks.

“Yeah, it’s pretty frustrating,” a tinny voice says from behind him. Zero had sensed the presence upon entering, but hadn’t felt compelled to inspect it in favor of putting metal between Gob and himself. “I feel ya. I really do.”

He turns and observes the strange reploid sitting on the bed of a charge pod. The reploid’s face is a blank white save for two glowing red lights for eyes and an actual speaker for a mouth. The cheeks have no sculpt, no depth, the nose dimensionless. It looks like a face cut out of an especially flat sheet of concrete, perched atop a solid, genderless violet chassis.

“Hiya,” the reploid says. Zero follows the fluid tilt of its head as it speaks. It looks very...natural.

“Hello,” he responds, nodding back.

As the reploid stands and walks closer, Zero gets a closer look at its build. He notices quality endo-armor on this one—not a scrap of synth-skin, none of the cheap stuff that Gob has. The grace with which it walks makes even the most competent of reploids out in the hall look like goose-stepping toddlers. Thorough analysis reveals a much more advanced chassis build, and much faster movement systems and processors than average.

( _But I’m still better,_ he can’t help but think. It’s not an opinion, it’s fact, it’s true—)

The reploid examines Zero with similar rigour, but he hardly feels threatened. Something in his systems hisses that he could take this strange reploid—easily.

“...Three months,” the reploid says suddenly. Zero tilts his head. “I’m guessing you’ve been active for at least three months.”

One, actually, his pride corrects, whimpering. But there really is no need to specify, so he simply shakes his head. “A bit less than that.”

The purple reploid lets loose a derisive bark of laughter that makes Zero’s processors startle. The final nail in the coffin: this reploid is very much unlike the others. “Of course. Your movements are too smooth for you to be one of those average Joes. No wonder you’re bunking with me—you’d tear your own head off out there.”

Zero immediately recalls Gob’s strange lapse in character and wonders, had this reploid experienced something similar?

“Do you mean how—”

“—how damn _slow_ those cut-budget reploids are?” the purple reploid cuts in, and Zero deflates. “Yeah, I do. I said it. They’re just cheap, dumb, inefficient piles of scrap for the most part. Y’know. Maverick fodder.”

It’s almost amusing how this one tosses criticisms so carelessly around when Zero had nearly thought himself into a feedback loop just minutes ago over voicing his own, similar concerns.

“...I guess it was quite...disappointing,” he responds, “what the instructors saw as solid progress.”

The reploid tosses its hands in the air. “I know, right? You and I, we’re leagues ahead. Of course, those bots out there will eventually turn out like functioning reploids, but guys like us—we got here in a fraction of the time,” and it— _he_ (at least, Zero presumes from “guys like us” and the masculine tones to his tinny voice) punctuates his next statement with a wild gesture of the hands, “But of course we still gotta stay the full stay. Like, why am I even here? I should be _hunting_ by now.”

The reploid’s rampant enthusiasm reminds him almost of X and Dr. Cain. Carrying on, and on, and on, desperate to say everything, because nobody has been around to hear before.

(Zero wonders if all lonely people ramble.)

“You’re a Maverick Hunter?” he questions, genuinely curious. He had yet to meet one despite Dr. Cain’s various lectures on the Hunters and their purpose.

“Of course,” the reploid answers, motioning at his own body. “Check the armor, the chassis, the scans. The Hunters only commission the most advanced models to join the force, and I’ve been told some o’ the tech I’ve got on me is so bleeding edge, I’m barely legal.” A waving motion with his finger. “You know, one of a kind, experimental. Though I’m sure you know the feeling; I’ve never seen a reploid like you.”

 _Android_ _,_ he almost corrects, but the sour feeling of being misclassified (despite the admittedly cryptic distinction between the two) is eclipsed by a growing feeling of...empathy.

Zero smiles. “Well, yes. I suppose we’re both quite unique.”

“I...Uh...right?” The reploid is caught off guard by something. Zero assumes it’s the smile.

“Say...What’s your name?” Zero asks.

The reploid laughs. “You got that whole lame conversation intro too? Well, I guess I’ll play along then.” He jabs a thumb at himself. “I’m CRIN-23, codename VAVA.”

“VAVA…?” Zero repeats, turning the name around on his tongue. It doesn’t sound like a name, but then again, neither does “Zero” or “X.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t wear it out,” VAVA chides good-naturedly. “And, uh… What was it again? Right. ‘How about you? What’s— _your_ —name?’ That sounds right, right?”

“Zero,” he responds, and his grin grows wider. “Don’t wear it out.”

VAVA snorts.

“Well— _Zero,_ it’s nice to meet you,” the purple reploid says, in the most grandiose manner possible for one with a metal slab for a face, and extends his hand.

Zero takes it. “It’s nice to meet you too— _VAVA_ _._ ”

He doesn’t have to force the mirth this time; it comes naturally, and he shares a quick laugh with a new acquaintance before VAVA settles back down on the bed of his charge pod.

“Anyways, what’re you doing here so late?” the reploid asks. “Usually, reploids are brought in immediately after manufacturing. Had to transfer?”

Zero takes a moment to consider his answer. Would _I was a barely-functional mess for the first two weeks of my short awareness_ cut it?

“I just had to get something fixed,” he says finally. True enough.

VAVA nods. “Ooooh, yeah. No, I get it. That’s what sucks about being an experimental model, stuff needs adjustment all the damn time. I’ve had to get my energy distribution systems tuned at least five times now, ‘cuz I’m supposed to be sending a ton of energy to weapons systems but, y’know—,” he pats his bare chassis, “—no weapons on me right now.”

“Yes, I suppose that would cause a problem,” Zero responds, trying to repress a strange trill of pleasure that had risen at the word “weapons.” He’s not so much as seen a weapon in his brief stint at life.

“Well?” VAVA continues. “What were _you_ in for?”

_My core caused a fallout that nearly killed every human in the area with radiation poisoning._

“My ID Disc was fritzy,” he says, borrowing a word from his encounter with Caroline.

VAVA’s head tilts in his best attempt to convey confusion without a real face.

“ID Disc?”

“Yes, a thin plastic wafer like this one here,” and Zero turns his head so that the inside of his communicator is showing. “Standard procedure.”

VAVA leans closer to inspect the thing, and Zero suspects he’s seen the delicate circuitry pressed within clear plastic. With a low “hmm,” he sits back down.

“That ain’t standard procedure, friend,” the purple reploid drawls, tapping his own (bare) communicator disc.“‘Fraid you got gypped. Hey, hey, don’t get all antsy, it’s probably fine!”

That last part is likely in response to the mild irritation Zero is _sure_ has begun to show on his face. _Another lie._

“How so?”

VAVA shrugs. “It’s just best not to question it, y’know? The humans’ve got it under control, they’re not doing anything shady.”

And it’s back to this, back to Gob, back to the strange lapse in character and voice. The speech patterns are correct, but Zero feels the loss of VAVA’s vindictive tone like a physical blow.

(Speechless.)

“Look, I’d just suggest you back off of it, Zero,” the purple reploid monotones. “It’ll be fine.”

Back to this, back to playing along to get things back to normal.

“...Right, it will be fine,” Zero affirms, disheartened. Desperate not to linger on this strange behavior, he continues, “The guidance reploid said you would introduce me to ‘this facility’s purpose and hand me my acclimation itinerary.’”

“Ah, yeah,” VAVA replies, back to his regular self. “I just gotta go fetch it…” a quick dash to a plain-looking table off to the side “Right...there,” and back, “Yep, there you go. I’d suggest you sit down for this; it’s a long one...”

So VAVA begins to expand on each item on the schedule, explaining each test, machine, requirement, room, and program, all while augmenting what might have been a fairly dull monologue with articulate, colorful commentary. Zero takes a seat on the bed of the second charge pod.

(He thinks of bruises, and tremors, and flinches, and lies, and suspicion, and horrid, flat voices.)

Even with the thin cushioning, he just can’t get comfortable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wahey I actually made it. Just out of curiosity, even though I will never have a regular update schedule, do you guys prefer shorter, 2k ish chapters more often or longer 5k ish chapters less often?
> 
> Beta-read by the amazing Superellysan, and also greenlit by Kumakins and bellygunnr. Check these guys out if you haven't already. They deserve hits and admiration.
> 
> (I almost gave Vile a completely southern drawl. Can you imagine?)  
> (Also another chapter will come but I can't make any promises about the time frame hhhhhh)


End file.
